Back to Books

Well, it's been a while but with heavy commission work, illness and day-job upheavals over the last couple of months to contend with, I am, just about, back to books again. Specifically the prequel to Maranatha.

A friend on Deviantart recommended a fine book entitled "How to Write a Damn Good Novel", and I picked this up at the start of the year. It's not a big manual, it isn't stuffed with the usual "Thou Shalt/Shalt Not" statutes that most books in this field try to ram down the writer's throat. It gives concepts and advice, and illustrates them amply to show why this advice should or should not be followed. It was rather heartening to go through many of the chapters with "Maranatha" in mind and mentally tick many of the boxes which James N. Frey presents. So, in a roundabout way, it got me back to "Venus in Saturn", the prequel, which has remained a bit stuck since last year due to the enormity of the story arc, and the need to build up the concluding backstory which concludes in the sequel, "The Keys of Heaven".

Slowly but surely, I'm beginning to see the emergence of the finished first draft. And in the meantime, because I've been on a bit of a roll artistically, took another shot at putting together a new cover for "Venus":


Venus in Saturn WIP 2 by ~Lord-Retsudo on deviantART

It still needs work but I'm a lot happier with this one now. And it helps that my digital art ability has improved enough for me to be confident enough to put it out on a book cover. But paid client commission work can have that effect!